


An Endless Line

by iloveyourscratchybeard



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Behind the Scenes, Cancer Arc, Cancer Arc (X-Files), Episode: s04e13 Never Again, Episode: s04e14 Memento Mori, F/M, Missing Scene, POV Fox Mulder, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 13:22:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16476350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iloveyourscratchybeard/pseuds/iloveyourscratchybeard
Summary: Mulder's point of view of the events of "Never Again" into "Memento Mori." Heavy on the angst. For Scully's POV that inspired this story, see "Lifeline."





	An Endless Line

The phone call came in that afternoon. Detective Gouveia out of Philly. Mulder's stomach sank. Scully was in the hospital. There had been a situation. He chided himself for not trying harder to get a hold of her earlier. He knew something was wrong when he called the hotel early that morning and they said there was no answer in her room. He felt it in his gut.

He caught the first flight out, knots in his stomach the whole way. He powered his way through the city, his focus narrowed to one thing. Scully. He’d felt bad for the way he had ended their conversation before. She had seemed so distant in the office. He’d suggested that some time apart was all they needed. But he missed her. He hadn’t realized how much he relied on her presence. Traveling to Tennessee alone, Mulder had what approximated to a sort of phantom limb pain. As he walked from room to room in Graceland, he could only think of one thing. He wanted to share this with her. When did that happen? When did he shift from being a lone wolf to needing her sarcasm and eye rolls, all with a hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth? He called her with the best intentions but ended up more frustrated at her indifference to the importance of the case. Why didn’t Scully understand what this meant to him?

It was after visiting hours when he arrived at the hospital. He didn’t care. He found her room and let himself in without knocking. Scully was asleep already, a bandage hovering above her left eye. He had the overwhelming need to touch her and took her hand. It was so cold. Brushing some hair back from her face, he had the urge to kiss her. Why does it always take a brush with death for him to realize how much he cares for her and why is it so hard for him to show her?

He sits with her for awhile, just watching her sleep, unaware of the passing of time until there is a soft knock at the door. Detective Gouveia had heard he was here and wants to discuss the case with him. His mind is racing with the intake of information. Who is this Edward Jerse? Does he have connections to Pudovkin? Why was Scully with him? The detective hands him the official police report with Scully’s statement. He tells him they are also working with the local bureau and it appears the tattoo parlor that Scully and this Jerse visited has connections to the Russian mafia. Tattoo parlor? What the hell. The detective leaves him with the report.

His head is spinning.

“I was on a first date with Mr. Jerse.” _Oh, so she did have a date._

“We had drinks and then he went with me to the tattoo parlor across the street.” _Tattoo parlor? Scully got a tattoo?_

“I stayed the night with Mr. Jerse in his apartment.” _She did what? She barely even knew the guy! Did she sleep with him?_

“I was awoken in the morning when Detective Gouveia and Smith showed up to speak with Ed.” _Fuck. Did she have sex with him?_

“That’s when I became aware of the chemical ergot in his blood, and presumably mine from the tattoo.” _Where did she get a tattoo?_ He felt an involuntary rush of blood south and hates himself for it. But the thought of someone putting art onto Scully’s naked skin…he stops his thoughts and continues reading her statement.

“Ed became violent and attacked me.” His throat is so dry. It feels as though his esophagus is going to close up on him. All of the air has been sucked out of the room. This goes against everything he knows about Scully. She isn’t impulsive. She isn’t reckless. She doesn’t have one night stands with homicidal lunatics. He knew he didn’t have any ownership over her, but something inside him felt horribly betrayed. She was his. Didn’t she know that? How could she go off with some stranger? She was his.

He went to the bathroom to wash his face and then down to the cafeteria to finish reading the report. He grabbed a coffee because he knew his mind would never let him sleep anyway. It was going to be a long night.

_

“Mulder, what are you doing here?”

“Philly PD contacted me yesterday. They assumed what had happened was related to the case we were working on. Wanted my insight into matters.”

She’s looking down at her hands, lost in thought. He isn’t even sure if she’s heard him. She’s so tiny in that hospital gown three sizes too big for her. All battered up, she seems like she might be made of porcelain.

“Scully?”

Her eyes seem even more blue against the angry red marks over her face. This brings all of his rage to the surface. Somebody did this to her.

“What- what the hell were you thinking?”

She doesn’t answer him, but her face dares him to continue.

“I read the police report last night. When I said I hope you took some time to discover something about yourself, I didn’t mean - ” He draws blood from his lip, and looks away from her. “You stay the night in the apartment of some stranger you don’t even know. You get a tattoo, you….” He swallows back bile. “Your date, I presume?”

She seems to consider this for a moment. “He seemed nice. A bit lost, but I suppose that’s what drew me to him.”

Nice? “Or homicidal! Did you know he murdered the woman in the apartment below him? How could you put yourself in that kind of situation?”

Finally, he gets a reaction from her. “And I suppose you’ve never made an error in judgment?” she says defiantly.

“Not…. not - ” A flood of images flash through his mind. Of California wildfires, and lost souls, and an emptiness from her absence that he wanted so badly to fill. He can almost feel the burn of her cross against his skin as deep as his hatred for himself for not being able to save her.

“He listened to me. He wanted to know me.”

Wait a second. What is she trying to say? ‘I don’t listen to her? I don’t know her?’ He’s deeply offended by her insinuation.

“I know you.” Better than anyone. “I want… to be - ” Be what? How can he put it into words so she can understand? Be the person who listens to you? The person you confide in? The person you make love to? There’s no way to put any of that into words. He knows he’s too selfish to be what she deserves. His emotions are at a boiling point and he jumps up to expel the energy. He needs to get out of here and get some air.

“The doctor said you should be released later this afternoon. I need to head down to the Philadelphia Bureau and wrap up a few loose ends with the Pudovkin case before we head back to DC.” He’s taking the coward’s way out - changing the subject like this. But he’s always been a coward.

Scully doesn’t seem to care either way. “I’ll be fine. Go.”

Why isn’t she as angry as he is? Why is she just sitting there like this isn’t a big deal? He wants to shake her senseless. Maybe he’s no better than this Jerse guy after all. He clenches his hand into a fist and turns to make his escape.

_

Scully calls him several hours later. She’s been released and is on her way back to DC. He had every intention of picking her up from the hospital and flying home together. She had other plans.

"I’ll see you, Monday.” And then the line is dead. She doesn’t even wait for his good-bye.

_

All weekend Mulder sears. He is still trying to process everything - backtracking in his mind to figure out where it all went wrong. Things were fine while they were on the Betts case. Joking over missing heads and medical waste. Things felt easy between them. How did things go from that to her off dating dangerous strangers and getting tattooed…what the hell?! He gets more and more worked up thinking about it. His profiler mind gets into the head of Edward Jerse. He’s a lonely man. A broken man who’s just lost everything. This beautiful woman steps into his life out of nowhere. She’s mysterious. Brilliant. Has past issues with authoritative men, but also, is sexually attracted to an authoritative man. She likes it a little rough. You can tell when you tightly grasp her wrist and she groans. Her pupils dilate. She licks her lips.  You run your free hand down her jaw- thumb her lips. She bites the flesh at the tip of your thumb. Your head dives in, tongue seeking tongue, biting lips, bumping teeth. It’s hard and it’s frantic. You release her wrist to use both hands to grab her blouse and rip it open, buttons crashing to the floor. Her skin is luminous, her breasts spilling slightly over the cups of her nude bra. You don’t even worry about the clasp, you rip it down to her stomach and dive in, taking the fleshy coral into your mouth while she moans and encourages you on.  
  
You back her into the wall, tearing at the button and zipper of her pants. You can feel her heat radiating off of her as you yank her pants down and hoist her up. Her legs wrap around your waist while you work on freeing your dick from your pants. It’s so hard it’s pulsing. There’s no time for rational thought - you need to fuck her now-now-now. One hand kneeds her ass cheek while the other reaches in between you and yanks her panties off to the side. With a single thrust - you slam your dick home, as deep into her wetness as you can go. It feels like you might pierce directly through her. She screams and throws her head back. She’s so tight for you, so wet…your cock is screaming at you. The pressure is building so fast. Your face is in her breasts and she’s making these sounds that you’ve never heard in your life. She’s getting close, you can tell by how tight the walls of her pussy are kneading your dick. Faster, you drive into her faster… “God- I’m coming… -  Mulder!” You explode.  
  
Mulder snaps back to reality, the walls of his apartment slowly re-taking shape. His hand is sticky, his fist full of limp shame. His stomach lurches. He’s beyond fucked up.  
  
_  
  
He’s dressed for work and headed out the door when his cell rings.  
  
“Mulder, it’s me. I, um, I need you to make a detour on your way to work this morning.”  
  
“Sure, where are you?”  
  
She’s silent for a beat too long. “Holy Cross Memorial.”  
  
The hospital? “Scully? Is everything okay?”  
  
“I’m fine, Mulder.” There’s a quiver in her voice. “I just - I need to talk to you about something.”  
  
“Okay. Okay. Of course, I’m on my way. Where should I meet you?”  
  
Scully takes a deep breath before answering. Her voice falters a little as she responds. “Oncology. I’ll meet you in the oncology wing.”  
  
_  
  
There’s a  flower stand on the corner as he turns into the hospital. He’s not sure why, but he stops and buys the biggest bouquet there is. He’s not really a flower and box of chocolates kind of guy and he doubts Scully is the type of girl to accept such things. There was just something in the way she spoke on the phone. He needed something in his hands to keep them from shaking.  
  
She’s in full on doctor mode when he steps into the room. But the flowers and a lame joke about stealing them from a guy with a broken leg earn him a rare Scully smile. It’s brief, but it’s everything.  
  
She shows him head scans and he hears her speaking but he can’t even start to process what she is saying. She simplifies it for him. “A tumor.”  
  
All the events from the past few weeks come crashing down around him all at once. She’s a doctor. She must have known something was going on in her own head. It all starts to make sense. Her distance, her indifference to the trivial details of the case, her reckless and spontaneous behavior. How is one supposed to act when they wonder if their life is about to come crashing down?  
  
“Is it operable?”  
  
“No.”  
  
God, he’s been such an asshole. Multimedia laser show jokes aside, he was selfish and too caught up in his frustration with the pinheads behind a desk forcing him to take a vacation. He didn’t take the time to listen to her, to actually listen, as she said she felt like they were stuck in an endless line - two steps forwards and three steps back. How could he not see the storm behind her eyes?  
  
“I have cancer.” No, no, no, no. “If it pushes into my brain, statistically, there is about zero chance of survival.” So steady. So sure of her own death sentence.  
  
“I don’t accept that. Th-there- there must be some people who’ve received treatment for this.” He is under water. He’s already lost her. He’s already lost her once and it nearly killed him.  
  
  
He wants to take it all back. He wants to actually appreciate that the FBI was forcing him to take a paid vacation and he wants to take her with him. He wants to take her to Graceland and sing “a hunk of burning love” to her with his stupid glasses to make her laugh and wipe Memphis BBQ sauce off of her cheek.  
  
He wants to take it back further. He wants to beat Duane Barry to Skyland Mountain. He'll save her from the truck of that car and they'll take Duane instead.   
  
Further. He wants to keep her from every laying her hands on that implant in the first place. She was safe doing autopsies in Quantico. Why did he have to drag her back into his world?  
  
Further. He wants to rewind all the way back to “nobody down here but the FBI’s most unwanted,” have her turn around, and walk right back out of that office.  
  
The thought of never knowing her... He can’t do it. He can’t rewind that far.  
  
She’s speaking and he struggles to hear her words. “-okay, Mulder?” He blinks several times. Smiles. She tells him she’s dying and he fucking smiles.  
  
“So I’ll see you back at the office?” He nods in response, still in a daze.  
  
Scully turns, scans in hand, and walks out of the room. His world crashes.


End file.
